Part 12 (1/2)

And when we're tired of that, my friend, oh, you will come with me; And we will seek the sunlit roads that lie beside the sea.

We'll know the joy the gipsy knows, the freedom nothing mars, The golden treasure-gates of dawn, the mintage of the stars.

We'll smoke our pipes and watch the pot, and feed the crackling fire, And sing like two old jolly boys, and dance to heart's desire; We'll climb the hill and ford the brook and camp upon the moor . . .

Old chap, let's haste, I'm mad to taste the Joy of Being Poor.

V

My Garret, Montparna.s.se,

June 1914.

My Neighbors

_To rest my f.a.gged brain now and then, When wearied of my proper labors, I lay aside my lagging pen And get to thinking on my neighbors; For, oh, around my garret den There's woe and poverty a-plenty, And life's so interesting when A lad is only two-and-twenty.

Now, there's that artist gaunt and wan, A little card his door adorning; It reads: ”Je ne suis pour personne”, A very frank and fitting warning.

I fear he's in a sorry plight; He starves, I think, too proud to borrow, I hear him moaning every night: Maybe they'll find him dead to-morrow._

Room 4: The Painter Chap

He gives me such a bold and curious look, That young American across the way, As if he'd like to put me in a book (Fancies himself a poet, so they say.) Ah well! He'll make no ”doc.u.ment” of me.

I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . .

Pictures, just pictures piled from roof to floor, Each one a bit of me, a dream fulfilled, A vision of the beauty I adore, My own poor glimpse of glory, pa.s.sion-thrilled . . .

But now my money's gone, I paint no more.

For three days past I have not tasted food; The jeweled colors run . . . I reel, I faint; They tell me that my pictures are no good, Just crude and childish daubs, a waste of paint.

I burned to throw on canvas all I saw-- Twilight on water, tenderness of trees, Wet sands at sunset and the smoking seas, The peace of valleys and the mountain's awe: Emotion swayed me at the thought of these.

I sought to paint ere I had learned to draw, And that's the trouble. . . .

Ah well! here am I, Facing my failure after struggle long; And there they are, my _croutes_ that none will buy (And doubtless they are right and I am wrong); Well, when one's lost one's faith it's time to die. . . .

This knife will do . . . and now to slash and slash; Rip them to ribands, rend them every one, My dreams and visions--tear and stab and gash, So that their crudeness may be known to none; Poor, miserable daubs! Ah! there, it's done. . . .

And now to close my little window tight.

Lo! in the dusking sky, serenely set, The evening star is like a beacon bright.

And see! to keep her tender tryst with night How Paris veils herself in violet. . . .

Oh, why does G.o.d create such men as I?-- All pride and pa.s.sion and divine desire, Raw, quivering nerve-stuff and devouring fire, Foredoomed to failure though they try and try; Abortive, blindly to destruction hurled; Unfound, unfit to grapple with the world. . . .

And now to light my wheezy jet of gas; c.h.i.n.k up the window-crannies and the door, So that no single breath of air may pa.s.s; So that I'm sealed air-tight from roof to floor.

There, there, that's done; and now there's nothing more. . . .